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SPEECH OF 
HON. CHARLES E. HUGHES, 

AT THE 

LINCOLN DINNER OF THE REPUBLICAN 
CLUB, 

AT THE 

Waldorf-Astoeia, New York, 
February 12, 1908. 

Governor Hughes: Mr. President, Gentlemen of 
the Republican Club and Ladies: The exigencies of 
the gubernatorial office have not given me oppor- 
tunity to prepare any address which would be 
worthy of the traditions of this anniversary, and 
I appear before you without any set speech. I 
am very glad, indeed, of the opportunity of wel- 
coming to the State of New York the Governor 
of our sister State of Kentucky, and I envy you 
the pleasure that you will have in listening to 
those who will adequately present the memories of 
this occasion. But, my friends, from a boy I have 
been full of Lincoln. There is no day in the year 
that is so eloquent to me as the day in which we 
commemorate his birth. It is true that on that 
day of all days, when we celebrate the Declaration 
of Independence, the American heart is warm with 
the sentiments of liberty and of free opportunity 
and of party recognition of equality. It is also 
true that on the day when we celebrate the birth 
of the Father of his Country, we render loyal 

Law Reporting Compaut, 67 Wall Street, New York. 



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tiibiite to the distinguished services of the man 
who, against odds which we little ai^preciate, bat- 
tled for the independence which was so nobly 
declared; and we all feel richer in our manhood 
l)eeause we were introduced to the family of 
nations l)y one who so worthily represented the 
l)est that humanity has olfered. But there is one 
man who presents to the American people above 
all others in his many sided greatness the type 
representative of those qualities which distinguish 
American character, and make possible the main- 
tenance of our national strength, and, in Abraham 
Lincoln we recognize, not simply one who gave his 
life for his country and rendered the most impor- 
tant service that any man could render in the 
preservation of the Union, but one who seemed to 
have centered in himself those many attributes 
which we recognize as the sources of oixr national 
l)ower. He is, par excellence, the true American, 
Abraham Lincoln. 

I wish in our colleges, and wherever young men 
<ire trained, particularly for political life, that 
there could be a course in Lincoln. I wish our 
young men could be taken through the long efforts 
of his career, I wish they could become more in- 
timately acciuainted with the addresses that he de- 
livered, I wish that they could get in closer touch 
with that remarkable personality and then they 
would never find it possible to take a low or sordid 
view of American opportunity. 

Abraham Lincoln was an acute man, but we 
erect no monuments to shrewdness. We have no 
memorials by which we desire to perpetuate the 
lecords of American smartness. Skill in maniim- 
lation, acuteness in dealing for selfish purposes, 
may win their temporary victories, but the acute- 
ness that the American people admire is that acute- 
ness which is devoted to the solution of problems 



■^.U^OJULltw 



affecting their prosperity ami directly related to 
their interests, and which is employed imselfishly 
and for the benefit of the people, apart from any 
individual interest. 

I have long been a student of Lincoln. I have 
marvelled at the ability which he displayed. There 
has been no greater exi^oneut of that shrewdness 
of intellect which so pre-eminently characterizes 
the American, but Abraham Lincoln devoted all his 
talents and his extraordinary perspicacity to the 
welfare of the people. He was a man of principle. 
He was a man, all of whose acts were founded 
iipon a recognition of the fundamental principles 
which underlie our Republic. Said he, on one 
occasion, "I have no sentiments except those which 
I have derived from a study of the Declaration of 
Independence. ' ' He was jirofoundly an apostle of 
liberty. I have said that he was a man of prin- 
ciple. Rarely has the doctrine of the relation of 
the Nation to the States, and of government to 
the individual, been more hicidly expounded than 
he expounded it in those sentences which probably 
are familiar to you all. He said: "The nation 
must control whatever concerns the nation. The 
States, or any minor political communities, must 
control whatever exclusively concerns them. The 
individual shall control whatever exclusively con- 
cerns him. That is real popular sovereignty." 

He was an exjjert logician. He brought to bear 
upon his opponents the batteries of remorseless 
logic. He had a profound confidence in the rea- 
soning judgment of the American people. He 
disdained all efforts to capture the populace by 
other means. 

There is nothing more illuminating than his con- 
duct of that grand cam]>aign against Douglas in 
1858. He developed his line of attack in a ques- 
tion. He brought to bear upon his opponent an 



extraordinarj^ ability of analysis. He eviscerated 
the subject of discussion and he presented the 
whole matter that was then before the great 
American Nation in its bare bones, in a perfectly 
cool and logical consideration; and, while he lost 
the campaign for the senatorship, he made him- 
self the apostle of thinking America in its oppo- 
sition to the extension of slavery. He had 
one foundation principle, and that was this: 
"Slavery," he said, "is wrong. It may be recog- 
nized where it constitutionally exists, but shall it 
be extended ? ' ' And to eveiy proposition that was 
])resented by his skillful and adroit opponent he 
presented not abuse, not any appeal to the emo- 
tions of the multitude, but cogent reasoning from 
which none could escape, and, while he lost the 
senatorship, he ajipeared before the American peo- 
jile as re])resenting their ideal of straightforward, 
honest representation of the truth applicable to 
their crisis, and received the highest honor within 
their gift. 

There never has been an illustiatiou, I venture 
to say, within the memory of man, where intellect 
has exerted so potent a magnetism, and where 
loyalty has been commended simply because rea- 
s(in exerted its sway. I love to dwell upon these 
historic events. Any American who has failed 
to take a(h-antage of their study has lost largely 
his opportunity. 

"Whenever you are tempted to think in a dis- 
couraging manner of the future of the American 
Republic, you should read the annals of those times 
when the Union itself was in the balance, and you 
should realize how inevitably the American public 
res])ouds to the demands of reason and how neces- 
sarily anything that cannot stand against honest 
judgment must fail in this enlightened Republic. 



Lineoln was a humlilo man, nnpretentions and 
of lowly birth. He was without affectation. He 
was the most democratic of men. No one that 
has ever lived among ns has been so much a 
l)rother to every man, however lowly bora or un- 
fortunately circumstanced. His was not the early 
training of those who like many of our dis- 
tinguished men had the advantages afforded by 
parentage with noble traditions, although in poor 
circumstances, with schooling and environment 
which would stimulate the loftiest of aspirations. 
He sprung from conditions which would seem to 
stifle ambition. He simply was a man, — a man 
born, — a great American ; superior to all the dis- 
advantages which surrounded his bii-th and early 
training, and there is no man who walks in any 
station of life in anj' part of the country who can- 
not call Lincoln his brother, his friend, a man of 
like passions and like experiences with himself. 

We recognize some men for the services that 
they have rendered. They have deserved well of 
their country. We recognize Lineoln for his ser- ' 
vice. No one has deserved better of his country. 
He rendered a service which cannot be eulogized in 
too extravagant terms; but we forget anything 
that Lincoln ever did or anj^thing that Lincoln ever 
said in the recognition of the great manhood that 
was his, which transcendetl anything he did be- 
cause of what he was. 

I have said that he was a man of principle; 
and so he was. But he was a progressive man ; he 
was sensitive to the demands of his day. Three or 
or four years — three years, I believe it was, after 
the outbreak of the war he said, "I have not con- 
trolled events; I confess events have controlled 
me. After three years we find ourselves in a situ- 
ation which neither party and no man devised or 
expected." He was a man who met each demand 



as it arose. To the raflieals he was too conserva- 
tive; to the conservatives he was too radical. Few 
in the community praised him durino; his life. 
Prohably no man in the whole history of the Re- 
public was ever so severely criticised and so merci- 
lessly lami)ooned in the dark days of 1864, after he 
had, throu,a,'h years of trouble, sustained a burden 
which would have broken down an ordinary man. 
He said in August of that year that it seemed 
there were no friends, and he looked forward to 
the next election as almost certain to go against 
the party which he represented. 

Without sacrilege I may say he was "a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief." And fre- 
quently alone, without the sustaining encourage- 
ment of even those who were close to him in his 
official family, he endeavored to exercise that 
judgment which history commends and that 
extraordinary talent for analyzing difficult situa- 
tions which are the marvels of our later day. 

My friends, Lincoln represents what the Amer- 
ican Republic is capable of and, in one personality, 
typifies what we have accomplished and of what 
we can reasonably hope. 

He was a humane man, a man of emotion which 
he never allowed to control his reason: a man of 
sentiment, of deep feeling. He was a lowly man 
who never asserted himself as superior to his fel- 
lows, but he could rise in the dignity of his man- 
hood to a majesty that has seldom been equalled 
by any ruler of any people under any form of 
government. When Lee sent to Grant and sug- 
gested that there might be some talk with regard 
to the disposition that might be made of public 
affairs in the interest of peace, and Grant for- 
warded the communication or the substance of it 
to the President, the President, without a mo- 
ment's hesitation, or without consultation with 



any one. said, in effect, "You shall confine your 
communications with (leneral T^ee to the matter of 
capitulation or to minor or military .subjects. You 
shall not discuss with him any political affairs. 
The Pi'esident reserves to himself the control of 
those questions and will not submit them to any 
military convention." 

It was not an assertion of any superiority 
which he felt above his brother man. It was sim- 
ply the realization of the dija^nity of his office and 
its responsibility in a supreme crisis, and the will- 
ingness to assume that responsibility before the 
American people with that iimate confidence of 
which, with his supreme intellect, he could never 
be deprived. 

My friends, we see in Lincoln patience, the rea- 
soning faculty, humanity, the democratic senti- 
ment, patient consideration, all combined, and we 
may well learn from him the lessons which at 
eveiy hour of our history we should well study. 

There may be those who look with uncertainty 
upon our future, who feel oppressed by the prob- 
lems of the day. I am not one of them. 

"'\Miy," said Lincoln, "should we not have 
patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the 
American people?" 

Why not, indeed ? Who are the American peo- 
ple? They are the most intelligent people organ- 
ized into any civil society on the face of this broad 
earth. They have abundant opportunities for 
education. They are keen and alert. They are 
those whom you meet in every walk of life. Their 
common sense is of general recognition among all 
the peoples of the world. A\Tiy not have patient 
confidence in the ultimate justice of the American 
people? If we could only feel, as Lincoln felt, and 
derive our political sentiments from a study of the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence and 



8 



proceed, as Lincoln did, with remorseless logic to 
the consideration of the demands of every exi- 
gency, there can be no question but what each 
problem will be solved, and that every decade of 
American history will witness a further advance, 
and that the i)rosperity of the future will far 
transcend anything that we have realized in the 
past. 

Undoubtedly abuses exist; undoubtedly abuses 
must be cured. If there is any man who thinks, or 
any set of men who think, that by any astuteness 
they may stand in the way of progress and may 
prevent the correction of evils that exist, let them 
beware. They will tiud themselves impotent. 
Progress will take no account of them. The Amer- 
ican people will advance step by step surely and 
inevitably to a realization of their ideal, and noth- 
ing whatever will stand hi the way, in the course 
of time, of that equality of opportunity and of 
equal rights before the law which the Declaration 
of ludependence announced and which the Con- 
stitution was intended to conserve. 

What we need to-day is a definition of evils. 
What we need to-day is a delimiting of abuses, and 
let the whole power and strength of the Republic, 
as represented by those who are naturally its 
leaders, be devoted to the careful and calm consid- 
eration of remedies in order that we may save our 
prosperity and, at the same time, render every 
condition which threatens us impotent and power- 
less, because the will of the peoi)le in the interest 
of the people, the deliberate expression of the pop- 
ular judg-ment, must in this country at all times be 
su])reme. 

There is plenty of coal on board; every man is 
at his post; steam is up, and the only question is 
as to the direction and to avoid the sand-bars and 
the shoals; it is a question of the selection of the 



right course. I believe most thoroughly in the 
judgment of the American people. Every man in 
this country worthy of his citizenship desires to 
work. He desires to get a fair opportunity to 
show what is in him. He desii-es to have the ad- 
vantages which from boyhood he has been taught 
that this American Eepublic affords. He desires 
to have hurdles and obstacles which may have 
been put in his way by special partiality or by a 
perversion of government removed. He desires 
to have no disadvantage created by any ill-consid- 
ered interference with government relations. But, 
on the other hand, he intends to have the fullest 
advantage and opportunity for the exercise of his 
individual power, with recognition of the equal 
right of every other man to the exercise of his 
individual power; so that all may be prosperous 
and all may succeed; and all that we need is to put 
a stop to those things which are inimical to our 
common advantage, and insist upon our common 
rights, and reason together in regard to what is 
fair and what is just, and accomplish things with 
full ascertainment of the facts because they are 
right, and because the people, in their deliberate 
judgment, demand that they should be accom- 
plished. 

We are all fortunate that we have a Lincoln. 
"\A^iat would the country be if we were all a lot of 
sordid money grabbers with nothing to point to 
but the particular sharpness of A. or the special 
success in some petty manipulation of B? T^Hiat 
a grand thing it is that we have the inheritance of 
the memory of a man who had everything which 
we could aspire to in intellectual attainment ; who 
was endowed with a strength of moral piirpose; 
who was perfectly sincere in the interest of the 
people, and who gave his life work and eventually 
his life itself in order that our Union with its op- 
portimities might survive. 



10 



I am proud, my friends, to have had an oppor- 
tmiity to study Lincoln 's life. If any of you have 
failed to take advantage of that opportunity, do 
not let another year go by without making a thor- 
ough study of that career. It is an epitome of 
Americanism. It will realize all that you have 
dreamed of and all that you can possibly imagine. 
It is simply the representation of a man upon 
whose brow God had written the line of superioi'- 
ity, who never arrogated it to himself except iu 
his great function of discharging the highest office 
of government. Defeated again and again, failing 
to realize the ambition that was next to him — 
again and again he rose by sheer force of intellect 
and character until he came to the point where a 
Nation 's burden was put upon him, and he carried 
it so nobly that forever he will be to us a Nation's 
representative of the typical American. 



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